Teams

Apart from the men's senior team, Denmark competes with a women's national
team, and has teams at various youth levels for both men and
women, most prominently the under-21 national
team. Additionally, there is a league national team, or B-team,
of the best players from the domestic Danish Superliga, playing official games in
the winter break of the national league, as well as an old-boys
national team. Historically, the team competed in the Summer Olympics until and including the 1988
tournament, whereafter Olympic games count as under-21 national
games.

History

Amateur years

Denmark won an unofficial victory in the 1906 Intercalated
Olympics, and finished second in their first official
tournament, the 1908 Olympics, an
achievement copied four years later in the 1912 Olympics. Although
Denmark figured fairly prominently in the pre-World Cup era, international success would
elude them for years from the first World Cup in 1930 and forward.
Despite the country's ability to produce outstanding footballing
talent, a bronze medal in the 1948 Olympics was the
only result of note in 50 years. As football remained an amateur
pastime, most of the best Danish footballers moved abroad to make a
living, and foreign-based professionals were barred from the
national team, in common with other Scandinavian countries.

In the 1960s, Denmark had a revival with a third set of Olympic
silver at the 1960
Olympics, though the most notable performance was fourth place
in the Euro
1964. Denmark took advantage of a comparatively easy draw, as
they beat Malta and
Luxembourg before
losing to the USSR in
the semi-final and Hungary in the bronze match.
The national team rule of amateurism was abolished in 1971, which
led to a vast improvement in the Danish team's performances.
In 1978,
professional football was introduced to the Danish leagues, which
prompted the first sponsorship of the national team by Danish
brewery Carlsberg, enabling the team to
hire full-time coach Sepp Piontek from
Germany in 1979.

Danish Dynamite

In the 1982 FIFA World Cup
qualifiers, Denmark finished with 8 points from as many games,
including a 3–1 win against eventual World Cup champions Italy, but Denmark failed to
qualify for the final tournament despite the impressive result.
Qualification for the Euro 1984 saw the
team beat England at
Wembley
Stadium when Allan Simonsen
converted a penalty kick for a 1–0
win. Denmark qualified for their first international
tournament since 1964, and the team was dubbed "Danish Dynamite" in
a competition for the official Danish Euro 1984 song. Denmark's
participation ended in the semi-final when the team lost on
penalties to Spain, most remembered for
Preben Elkjær's penalty miss, his
shorts torn apart. Following the strong performance at the finals,
the name of "Danish Dynamite" became a mainstay for the following
decade of Danish national team football under coach Piontek.

Denmark made their first World Cup appearance in the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and with the
attacking duo of Michael Laudrup and
Preben Elkjær the team surprised the world, sweeping the group,
including a 6–1 thrashing of Uruguay. In the second round
Denmark once again faced Spain, and once more Denmark lost out. The
team received a trashing of their own, losing 5–1, including four
goals by Emilio Butragueño.
The first Spanish goal was caused by a miss-timed backpass by
Jesper Olsen to Butragueño, an
unfortunate action subsequently coined as "a real Jesper Olsen"
(en rigtig Jesper Olsen). The phrase would live on for 13
years when an identical backpass was carried out by Jesper Grønkjær to Filippo Inzaghi in Grønkjær's 1999 debut
game.

After the glory days of 1986 came a period of transition with
faltering results. The Euro 1988
tournament ended in early defeat as Denmark lost the group games to
Spain, Germany, and
Italy. When Denmark
failed to qualify for the 1990 FIFA
World Cup Sepp Piontek was replaced by his assistant coach
Richard Møller
Nielsen.

1992 European Champions

Denmark's finest hour in the international competitions came in the
Euro 1992.
The Danes initially failed to qualify, as they trailed Yugoslavia in their
qualifying group. Michael Laudrup,
the star of the team, decided to quit the national team during the
qualification matches, following tactical differences with Coach
Nielsen. However, due to international sanctions resulting from the
Yugoslav wars, Yugoslavia was barred
from the tournament, and Denmark entered as the second-placed team
in its group. Contrary to popular belief the team did not rally
home from seaside vacations to compete, as the majority of players
were already assembled to play a friendly match with the CIS when Denmark officially got
the spot at the tournament.

Relying heavily on goalkeeper Peter
Schmeichel and his defense, as well as creative spark Brian Laudrup, the Danish team created one of
the biggest surprises in the event's history, as they went on to
win the European Championship trophy under coach Richard Møller Nielsen's
defensive playing style. Advancing from the group stage ahead of
England and France,
Denmark beat the Dutch defending Euro 1988 champions
on penalties in the semi-final, and with the 2–0 win against
reigning 1990 FIFA World Cup
champions Germany in the final, Denmark had won its first
trophy.

Following the Euro 1992 win, Michael Laudrup revived his national
team career in 1993. The following years Denmark saw mixed results
as they failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, before securing a
King Fahd Cup win, beating Copa América champions Argentina in 1995. As
defending champions at the Euro 1996, Denmark
disappointed with a lacklustre performance and the team was
eliminated in the group stage. As controversy had occurred over the
prolonging of Richard Møller Nielsen's contract in fall 1995,
including a strained relationship with the press, he was let go.
The new
coach was the sympathetic SwedeBo "Bosse" Johansson, who gave the team a more
offensive strategy, and the 1998
FIFA World Cup saw the revival of the Danish team, starring
both Laudrup brothers in their last international campaign.
After beating Saudi Arabia 1–0, drawing with South Africa and
losing 2–1 to later champions France in mediocre games the Danish
team qualified to the knockout stages as second in the group. In
the next game however Denmark played some of the best football of
the tournament beating Nigeria 4–1 and thus qualified to the
quarterfinals against Brazil. The Danes went out
with a beautiful 2–3 defeat to the later silver medalists in a very
close and emotional game. Following yet another disappointing
European Championship in the Euro 2000, with
many players selected for the squad despite injuries and poor form,
"Bosse" decided not to prolong his contract.

The Olsen Gang

The new coach turned out to be the former national team captain
from the successful team of the 1980s, Morten Olsen, and the team was quickly dubbed
the "Olsen Gang", a reference to the
series of Danish movies based around the main character Egon Olsen
and his genius (criminal) plans. The nickname was also used for the
Danish team when Olsen captained it. Under Olsen, who brought with
him great experience from among others Ajax Amsterdam, Denmark's tactics shifted to
an even more attacking style, with an emphasis on the speedy
wingers available to him at the time, namely Jesper Grønkjær and Dennis Rommedahl, and Olsen stressed the
importance of only using fit and on-form players in the team - a
principle that he's later been forced to go back on somewhat, as
the player material available in such a relatively small nation
doesn't always provide many realistic options.

Denmark qualified both for the 2002
FIFA World Cup and the Euro 2004, but
despite impressive results in the group stage in both tournaments,
especially the 2–0 win against reigning World Cup winners France in
2002, Denmark were defeated in the first post-group stage round in
both tournaments. The Euro 2004 will be best remembered for an
incident in the game with Italy, where Italian star
Francesco Totti was caught on camera
by a Danish cameraman, spitting on Danish player Christian Poulsen, and the joint
elimination of Italy by Denmark and Sweden in the last
group stage match when the two teams drew 2–2 following a
Swedish goal in the 89th minute, making for the exact and famous
result that would see the Italians eliminated.

Olsen's reign of the Danish national team has been the most
successful in the time of professional coaches. As of March 2006,
Morten Olsen has a winning share of 58,7%, and with three points
for a victory and one for a draw, Olsen has an average of 2,03
points per game. In comparison, Richard Møller Nielsen had a
54,8% winning share and a 1,89 point average, and especially
Olsen's attitude of taking every friendly match seriously has led
to many good results, one notable example being a friendly 4–1 win
over England in 2005,
the worst loss for the English team since 1980 and a repetition of
the impressive Danish 3–2 win on English ground at Old
Trafford in 2003.

For the 2006
World Cup qualification, Denmark was paired with, among others,
2002 World Cup bronze winners Turkey and Euro 2004 champions
Greece competing for
only one guaranteed spot at the final tournament. Following a poor
start of the qualification, Denmark were trailing both Turkey and
surprise leaders Ukraine. Denmark needed
Turkey to lose points in the final games in order for Denmark to
clinch the 2nd place of the group and one last chance to qualify
via two play-off games. Indeed, had Turkey lost points to Albania in their last game,
Denmark would have gone through, but instead they had to settle for
3rd place in the group and a longer summer break.

After failing to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, coach Olsen
considered leaving the job, having received several offers from
club teams, but decided to stay and extended his contract until
after the 2010 FIFA World Cup,
spurred on by his and the team's popularity among the Danish
population.

Supporters

Apart from the national team, Denmark is equally famous for its
traveling fans, known as roligans.
The movement emerged during the 1980s as the declared opposition to
hooliganism. The goal of the
roligan movement is calm, yet cheerful, support during the matches,
as rolig means calm in the Danish language. The roligans have since
developed an image of easy-going nature and rabid support, and are
often considered amongst the world's best national team fans, along
with the Tartan Army of Scotland. They
were collectively given the FIFA FairPlay Award at the 1984
European Championships. Just before the 1986 World Cup, the roligan
movement was organized in order to support the national team at the
tournament.

The good reputation of the Danish supporters was sullied during a
June 2, 2007Euro 2008 qualifying game with Sweden, when an enraged Danish
supporter invaded the pitch and attacked the referee following the
expulsion of Christian Poulsen.
The game was immediately abandoned and the supporter
arrested.

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (Group 1)

Stadium

From a 2–1
friendly win over Germany in 1912, to a 0–2
Euro 1992 qualification loss to Yugoslavia in 1990, Denmark played
most of their home games at Idrætsparken in Copenhagen, a total of 232 games, of which 125 were
won.During this time, various games were spread
out across the country, with matches played in other parts of the
country, like at Aalborg
Stadion in Aalborg, NRGi Park (then known as Atletion) in Århus, and
Fionia
Park (then known as Odense Stadium) in Odense, Odense
Stadium being the main venue for national games for a year after
the abandonment of Idrætsparken.

On
September 91992,
the rebuilt Idrætsparken, now called Parken, the biggest
venue in Denmark with 42,000 seats, was opened with a 1–2 defeat by
Germany. Parken has since been the sole stadium of the men's
senior national team matches, with a contract on all men's senior
matches until 2007. Meagre spectator support at some matches, which
have attracted from 22,000 down to below 10,000 for the April 17, 2002 friendly 3–1 win
over Israel, caused
speculation that certain friendly matches might be moved to other
stadiums around the country after 2007. In 2006 Parken's 13-year
monopoly on national team matches was broken, for a May 272006 friendly game at NRGi
Park, with World Cup 2006 participants Paraguay the opponent,
almost 19,000 of the 22,227 tickets were sold within the first hour
of sale. The game was a big success, support-wise, and
another game at a new venue followed on September 1 at Brøndby Stadium. However, this match only attracted 13,186
spectators (in a 26,000 capacity stadium) and was deemed a relative
failure. The reasons are thought to be a combination of the poor,
rainy weather, and the fact that this stadium is located on the
outskirts of Copenhagen, and as such does not attract a new
demographic, as the travel distances and times to Parken are not
much greater, if not lesser, for most of the population.

Players

The players are freely chosen by the national team manager.
They are
normally assembled, from their respective club teams, at Hotel
Marina in Vedbæk for a
week-long training camp preluding the upcoming game. Games
are typically played on a Wednesday or Saturday evening.

Coaching staff

Payment

Each player in the national team receives a set amount of money per
game, including bonuses for games won and qualification for the
European Championship and World Cup tournaments. Through the years,
these money prizes have gone from around €1,340 for a game win in
1987 and around €26,800 for the Euro 1988 participation alone, to
around €67,000 for the 1998 World Cup and up to €107,000 for the
2002 World Cup participations, per player. Currently, the win bonus
for friendly games are €1,340 per player, with start money for an
away game at €670 per player, while a home win before a sellout
crowd of 42,000, can possibly wield €7,600 per player, including
the win bonus, due to spectator-dependent bonuses. In the
qualification matches for the international tournaments, the
bonuses are increased for both home and away wins, with a bonus
also being paid for away draws.

Player names and numbers

Shirt numbers became quickly associated with a certain position, so
to describe someone as 'Denmark's number 9' would be to describe a
player as the best choice for centre
forward. This terminology continues today, and the team has
kept to the tradition of numbering players from 1 to 11 (12 upwards
for substitute), outside of
major tournaments such as the FIFA World
Cup or the UEFA
European Football Championship, where permanent squad numbers
are required.

Numbers are traditionally associated with a certain position, but
there are no set rules. Furthermore, established players will tend
to use the same number whenever they play. Martin Jørgensen, for example, retains
the Denmark number 10 no matter what position he plays in. However,
when Jørgensen does not play, another player will be number
10.

Best players of all time

In November 2006, the Danish Football Association nominated eight
Danish national team footballers for the "Best Danish Footballer of
All Time" award. The public could vote for the nominated players
through the TV 2 broadcasting
channel, and Michael Laudrup won the
award with 58% of the votes.

Managers

Ever since the Danish Football Association started registering
official games at the 1908 Summer Olympics, assigned football
managers who have coached the team at official tournaments. From
1911 to 1961, 169 matches were played without an assigned national
team coach.

Past squads and campaigns

Footnotes

The Danish Football Association (DBU) decided not to send a
competing team, so instead the Copenhagen Football
Association (KBU), sent an unofficial team which won the
tournament under the team name of Denmark.

The team did not compete in the final tournament, following the
discovery that Dane Per Frimann was not eligible for the 2–0 win
over Poland. Denmark was penalised
the points of the win, which cost the spot at the final
tournament.